The Indiana State Department of Health found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood clinics in the state in regards to the handling of fetal tissue donations after an investigation sparked by a shady anti-choice organization's heavily edited videos was completed.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence -- a Republican who has long championed efforts to defund Planned Parenthood -- ordered an investigation by the Indiana State Department of Health in cooperation with the state's Office of the Attorney General on July 16, citing "the recent video referencing Planned Parenthood's alleged trafficking of aborted fetal tissue." The move came just days after The Center for Medical Progress released a deceptive video claiming that Planned Parenthood was "selling aborted baby parts" that was roundly called out by the media for "show[ing] nothing illegal" and having selectively edited footage. The investigation was launched despite the fact Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky "does not participate in any tissue donation program."

On July 30, Indiana officially cleared Planned Parenthood clinics in the state of wrongdoing, finding "no evidence of any laws being broken" in the handling of fetal tissue, according to an Associated Press report. Pointing to letters from the Indiana Department of Health to the clinics investigated which stated that the agency was "unable to find any non-compliance with state regulations" the report noted that "the complaint is closed":

The Indiana Department of Health said in a statement Thursday that an investigation found no evidence of any laws being broken. Health department inspectors investigated the Indiana facilities on July 21.

Letters from the health department to the three Indiana facilities dated Tuesday and released to the media by Planned Parenthood said the agency had completed its investigation into the Planned Parenthood facilities that perform abortions in Indiana. The letters said the agency was "unable to find any non-compliance with state regulations. Therefore, no deficiencies were cited." The letters say the complaint is closed.

The state has the authority to license and regulate abortion clinics and to inspect them, the Health Department said. Federal law prohibits the buying and selling of human body parts or trafficking in tissue from an aborted fetus.

Indiana's findings further underscore the flimsy nature of The Center for Medical Progress' claims and reinforce the fact Planned Parenthood has simply been discussing legal reimbursement for fetal tissue donation.

An Erick Erickson blog post called for forcing "a fight in Congress" to "shut down the government if that is what it takes" to defund Planned Parenthood.

Conservative Republicans in Congress are currently "threatening to shut down the government" by rejecting "any spending bill that does not cut off federal funds for Planned Parenthood," following the release of fourdeceptivelyeditedvideos by conservative group Center For Medical Progress to attack the women's health organization.

In a July 31 blog post titled "Shut Down The Government. Now." Erickson encouraged individuals to show Republicans in Congress "violence in the polling booth" if they don't defund Planned Parenthood arguing, "shut down the government if that is what it takes. Shut it down now":

Your taxpayer dollars are being used to subsidize an organization that extracts children, weeks from birth and capable of feeling pain and hearing, from their mothers' wombs. The organization inserts instruments into the soft part of the child's skull, rips it open, and extracts its brain. It then crushes the head and pulls it further out of the womb. From there it extracts the child's heart, liver, lungs, and other viable organs.

[...]

Friends, if Republicans in Congress will not stop giving tax payer dollars to the American Joseph Mengele, we should show the party violence in the polling booth.

The national media will not cover the savage butchery of Planned Parenthood. Forcing this fight in Congress will force coverage. They will spin it against us, but every congressman who speaks up should stand surrounded by the images of butchered children so that all Americans can see what we are fighting for.

The budget and appropriations fights are forthcoming. If Barack Obama is willing to risk a government shutdown because he demands our tax dollars continue funding an organization that kills our children and sells their organs, we should have that fight.

Shut down the government if that is what it takes. Shut it down now. If we cannot stand on this high ground, we should not stand at all. Children are being ripped apart and their hearts, brains, lungs, and livers sold. Is this not a fight worth having?

Update: Erickson additionally said he "intend[s] to ask each POTUS candidate" at the RedState Gathering on August 7, "if they'd support a gov't shutdown" to defund Planned Parenthood in a July 31 tweet:

I intend to ask each POTUS candidate next week if they'd support a gov't shutdown if that's what it took to defund Planned Parenthood.

Right-wing media are trumpeting the myth that Planned Parenthood uses federal funds for abortion services to prop up Congressional Republicans' attempt to defund the women's health organization, despite the fact that it's been unlawful for federal money to support abortion for nearly 40 years.

A RedState.com blog post claimed that deceptively-edited videos from an anti-choice group smearing Planned Parenthood demonstrate that the organization is "our Auschwitz."

The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released a third video on July 28 claiming to show Planned Parenthood officials engaging in a "black market in baby parts." Like the two deceptively-edited videos previously released by CMP, the latest video once again features strategically-edited conversations that merely show that Planned Parenthood is being reimbursed for costs associated with the procurement of fetal tissue, which federal law allows.

A July 29 RedState.com blog post used the highly-edited videos to call Planned Parenthood "our Auschwitz." Writing that Planned Parenthood is "outpacing" the Nazis, the post claimed that for the organization "extinction is not enough. They want to make money off the slaughter":

The third undercover video exposing Planned Parenthood from the Center for Medical Progress is out. By now, the takeaway from this media is clear: this is our Auschwitz.

Some might recoil at this statement. Wait a minute, they're thinking, cool your jets. Auschwitz was a concentration camp. That's not Planned Parenthood. In the simplest terms, no, Planned Parenthood is not a concentration camp. It is not performing ethnic cleansing (anymore). It performs certain medical services that are of value to women. But for decades, the real "value added" function of the organization has been this: it has provided a safe and legal way for the killing and disposal of babies.

Sometimes, people make this connection where it's not warranted. This, however, is a cultural moment that put things in black and white. Planned Parenthood is facilitating preposterous acts of evil. In its abortion-and-fetal-tissue-business, it is doing the following: 1) killing innocent lives, 2) desecrating their bodies, and 3) profiting from these bodies.

Our muddy moral moment might obscure this searing truth: we are not simply keeping up to speed with the Nazis. We are outpacing them. Planned Parenthood is operating by a for-profit motive that was largely alien to the Third Reich. The point of the Final Solution was not profit. It was extinction of the Jews and other disposable persons. But for Planned Parenthood, extinction is not enough. They want to make money off of slaughter.

[...]

As a society, we have tolerated a culture of death. But now the lights are on, and the opportunity for reckoning is at hand. Let us not quiet our consciences. Let us not fail to seize this moment to save many more tiny boys and girls. Let us not miss the opportunity to do good. In this horrible instance, doing good means making clear what Planned Parenthood is: our Auschwitz.

Iowa radio host Steve Deace hosted Troy Newman, a radical anti-abortion activist and president of anti-choice group Operation Rescue, to hype the deceptively edited Planned Parenthood videos Newman helped produce and release. Newman has a history of violent speech and actions directed at abortion service providers, including systematically harassing clinic workers and defending the murder of an abortion clinic doctor.

Following the July 21 release of a second deceptively edited video purportedly showing a Planned Parenthood staff member engaging in a discussion about "selling" fetal tissue for medical science, Deace hosted Newman to discuss the videos he admitted helping create:

Although not discussed by Deace, who also has some extreme thoughts of his own about women's reproductive rights, Newman and Operation Rescue have a track record of aggressive anti-choice rhetoric and actions. According to a 2003 Operation Rescue West press release, Newman defended Paul Jennings Hill, an anti-abortion activist who murdered a Florida abortion doctor and his security guard in 1994. In the release Newman said Hill's conviction was unfair because Hill was unable to present "the legal defense that his conduct was justifiable defensive action" to "save the lives of pre-born babies that were scheduled to be killed by abortion that day."

For his part, Newman has engaged in personal harassment of clinic staff. As the Los Angeles Timesreported in a February 17, 2004 article, he planned to stalk clinic workers -- who he compared to infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele -- to "make it clear they're not welcome in Wichita":

Newman will pick through clinic workers' trash to figure out where they do business; he'll trail them at a distance to learn their routines.

His goal is not just to make their lives uncomfortable. He wants to unsettle and disgust their friends and associates, so their hairstylists and their pharmacists, even their neighbors, make it clear they're not welcome in Wichita.

"If Josef Mengele came into a bank saying, 'Here are a few gold teeth I ripped out of the Jews before I gassed them,' the bank would be horrified. They'd say, 'I'm not taking your blood money.' That's the picture of abortionists that we have to paint," Newman said.

The videos Newman's organization consulted on and took credit for on Deace's show are full of deceptive edits and do not show any illegal activity. As the New York Timesexplained in an editorial discussing the videos, the full first video, which was edited down from over two hours to less than 10 minutes, "shows something very different from what these critics claim" by "eliminat[ing] statements made by Dr. Nucatola explaining that Planned Parenthood does not profit from tissue donation." The editorial continued:

The Center for Medical Progress video campaign is a dishonest attempt to make legal, voluntary and potentially lifesaving tissue donations appear nefarious and illegal. Lawmakers responding by promoting their own anti-choice agenda are rewarding deception and putting women's health and their constitutionally protected rights at risk.

Factcheck.org agreed, saying the deceptively edited videos did not show Planned Parenthood violating any laws and highlighting experts who said that the money discussed in the video "represents a reasonable fee" for tissue donation.

FactCheck.org debunked a deceptively edited video from the Center for Medical Progress smearing Planned Parenthood by falsely claiming the organization has been "selling" fetal tissue donations, pointing out that the unedited video shows the clinics just "want to cover their costs, not make money" when making donations.

Discredited anti-choice organization Center for Medical Progress released a deceptively cut video claiming to have caught a Planned Parenthood official discussing the "selling [of] aborted baby parts" on July 14. Conservatives jumped on the opportunity to call to defund Planned Parenthood, despite mainstream media calling out the attack for "show[ing] nothing illegal."

FactCheck.org further demolished the video's credibility in a July 21 post explaining that, despite Center for Medical Progress' claim, the video does not show Planned Parenthood violated any laws. Noting that the official in the video "repeatedly say[s] its clinics want to cover their costs, not make money, when donating fetal tissue from abortions for scientific research," the fact-check quotes "biorepository" experts explaining that the fees discussed in the video would not generate "a profit at that price" -- it'd just offset some of the costs associated with the process:

We also asked experts in the use of human tissue for research about the potential for profit. Sherilyn J. Sawyer, the director of Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital's "biorepository," told us that "there's no way there's a profit at that price." She continued in an email:

Sawyer, July 20: In reality, $30-100 probably constitutes a loss for [Planned Parenthood]. The costs associated with collection, processing, storage, and inventory and records management for specimens are very high. Most hospitals will provide tissue blocks from surgical procedures (ones no longer needed for clinical purposes, and without identity) for research, and cost recover for their time and effort in the range of $100-500 per case/block. In the realm of tissues for research $30-100 is completely reasonable and normal fee.

Jim Vaught, president of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories and formerly the deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Office of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research, told us in an email that "$30 to $100 per sample is a reasonable charge for clinical operations to recover their costs for providing tissue." In fact, he said, the costs to a clinic are often much higher, but most operations that provide this kind of tissue have "no intention of fully recovering [their] costs, much less making a profit."

Carolyn Compton, the chief medical and science officer of Arizona State University's National Biomarkers Development Alliance and a former director of biorepositories and biospecimen research at the National Cancer Institute, agreed that this was "a modest price tag for cost recovery." Compton told us in an email: " 'Profit' is out of the question, in my mind. I would say that whoever opined about 'profit' knows very little about the effort and expense involved in providing human biospecimens for research purposes."

The New York Times was forced to issue two corrections after relying on Capitol Hill anonymous sourcing for its flawed report on emails from former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The Clinton debacle is the latest example of why the media should be careful when relying on leaks from partisan congressional sources -- this is far from the first time journalists who did have been burned.

Several Fox News figures are attempting to shift partial blame onto Samuel DuBose for his own death at the hands of a Cincinnati police officer during a traffic stop, arguing DuBose should have cooperated with the officer's instructions if he wanted to avoid "danger."

Iowa radio host Steve Deace is frequently interviewed as a political analyst by mainstream media outlets like NPR, MSNBC, and The Hill when they need an insider's perspective on the GOP primary and Iowa political landscape. However, these outlets may not all be aware that Deace gained his insider status in conservative circles by broadcasting full-throated endorsements of extreme right-wing positions on his radio show and writing online columns filled with intolerant views that he never reveals during main stream media appearances.